Sotto Voce - Dominique Lévy

Ben Nicholson, 1936 (White Relief), 1936

Sotto Voce is at Dominique Lévy until 18 April 2015. 
Sotto Voce, the second exhibition at Dominique Lévy looks to be as aesthetically thrilling as the first (see below). All the pieces in this show are abstract white reliefs - exhibited on grey walls. Artists featured include: Jean Arp, Ben Nicholson, Lucio Fontana, Piero Manzoni, Enrico Castellani, Fausto Melotti, Günther Uecker, Luis Tomasello, Sergio Camargo and Mira Schendel.

Despite the seeming limitation of an exhibition consisting entirely of white monochromes, the works, which broadly span the period  from the 1930s to the 1970s, demonstrate a rich range of tone (from spiritual harmony to unsettling aggression) and aesthetic affiliation ranging from Surrealism (Arp), to Constructivism (Nicholson), to Spatialism and the Zero Group (Manzoni, Fontana, Uecker). 
Read articles by Sarah Kent, Wessie Du Toit and Natalia Rachlin.

Jean Arp, Composition schématique, 1943

Piero Manzoni, Achrome, 1958

Lucio Fontana, Concetto Spaziale - Attese, 1965

Lucio Fontana, Concetto Spaziale, 1964

Sergio Camargo, Untitled (288), 1970

Günther Uecker, Untitled, 1967

Günther Uecker, Wind, 2009

Dominique Lévy gallery - installation view of Sotto Voce

Postcard from Berlin - Postscript: a Glitch

S-Bahnhof Greifswalder Strasse

On my last day in Berlin my camera developed a glitch. This was annoying in that it meant that almost every picture taken during my visit to the Bauhaus at Dessau (see below) was useless. However, a handful of images turned out to be rather interesting – see above and below.

Just as I was getting quite excited about working with this glitch, the camera appears to have stabilized and returned to normal. Which is really annoying!
Click on images to enlarge.

Bauhaus

Bauhaus

S-Bahnhof Greifswalder Strasse

Dessau Hauptbahnhof

Bahnhof Jeber-Bergfrieden

Postcard from Berlin, 6. (Bauhaus, Dessau)

Day 6 - the last full day in Berlin - was a train ride to Dessau to see the Bauhaus*. Dessau is about 100km south west of Berlin and the train from Alexanderplatz took the best part of 2 hours. It was, however, only a few minutes walk from Dessau station to the Bauhaus itself. It was exciting to walk up to, and into, the buildings so familiar from art history books. Walter Gropius' 1926 buildings were first restored in the 1970s and again in the 1990s. Today the buildings appear as fresh as they must have been nearly 80 years ago. They are managed by the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation and were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996.
We were given a guided tour of Die Meisterhäuser - the houses designed by Gropius for himself and the teaching staff, the 'masters'. Our German guide was diffident about conducting the tour in English but was excellent.  The masters occupied semi-detached house: in 1926, these included László Moholy-Nagy and Lyonel Feininger, Georg Muche and Oskar Schlemmer and Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee. Each half of the semi-detached houses are mirror images of the other, rotated by 90°. The houses were designed with consideration for efficiency both in construction (standardised, pre-fabricated blocks) and day to day living. It was interesting, and surprising, to see the rich use of colour both inside and out.
The Director's house did not survive the war - it has now been restored, not as a replica of the original but as an 'interpretation' by Bruno Fioretti Marquez. (See feature in dezeen and article by Philip Oltermann.)

Walter Gropius, The Feininger House, 1926

Stairwell in House Kandinsky (restored 2003)

The Gropius House (original 1925/6), interpreted by Bruno Fioretti Marquez, 2014

The tour of the Bauhaus building, itself, was equally interesting and included seeing the Director's office and a student's studio-bedroom.

*Thanks to Sue, Ian, Dawn, Martin and Deb for organising the visit.

Postcard from Berlin, 5. (Museum Berggruen)

The view east from the Fernsehturm

Day 5 in Berlin began with a trip to the top of the Fernsehturm (TV Tower) in Alexanderplatz to see the 360° panorama of the city.
Back on the ground, I made my way across the city to Charlottenburg to visit the Museum Berggruen.
Situated opposite Charlottenburg Palace the museum is housed in the Western of a pair of handsome matching 'Stülerbau' - pavilions built by Friedrich August Stüler in 1859 for the palace guards.

Charlottenburg Palace

Museum Berggruen

Mueseum Berggruen, interior - looking up into the monopteron (rotunda)

The collection itself, amassed by dealer and collector Heinz Berggruen (1914-2007), is principally of work by Picasso - with a little Matisse, Braque and Giacometti thrown in: it is wonderful. (The collection also includes Klee, but none was on display at the time of my visit.)

Pablo Picasso, Female Nude (study for Les Demoiselles d'Avignon), 1907

Pablo Picasso, Houses on a Hill (Horta de Ebro), 1909

Pablo Picasso, Bottle, Absinthe Glass, Fan, Pipe, Fiddle and Clarinet on a Piano, 1911-12

Pablo Picaso, Still Life in front of a Window, St Raphael, 1919

Pablo Picasso, Seated Nude Drying her Foot, 1921

Pablo Picasso, Reclining Nude, 1938

Pablo Picasso, The Yellow Pullover, 1939

Pablo Picasso, Large Reclining Nude, 1942

Pablo Picasso, Reading, 1953

Detail of standing figure by Alberto Giacometti

Henri Matisse, Vegetable Elements, 1947

Click on images to enlarge,
See also Postcards 1, 2, 3 and 4.